Marisacat

Noël Open Thread 23 December 2006

Well, first I landed on this article from Katz, at Counterpunch. Just fascinating. I had known that people fled to the unincorporated (under the Spanish flag) lands of what is now Florida, to escape the nation that was forming… but this has so much wonderful information.

[I]n July 1816, General Andrew Jackson, Commander of the U.S. Southern District, ordered Army, Navy and Marine units to invade Florida, then under the flag of Spain. Jackson acted, probably on orders from President James Madison, without a Congressional declaration of war. Neither Spain nor its colonial outpost posed a threat to the U.S. or its citizens. Rather, the President and the General–both prominent slaveholders–had concluded that the slave economy and its human “property” were threatened by the several thousand Native Americans and African Americans, including escaped slaves, who had united in the Seminole Nation on Florida soil. [snip]

[T]his former paratrooper seems to spring from a time when Africans and Indians armed and united to fight the first European invasion. For inspiration Chavez can reach back to the misty dawn of the foreign landings when heroic Black and African men and women rose to battle invading armies and their Christian missionaries. In 1819 Simon Bolivar, also of African and Indian lineage and the Founding Father of South America’s Revolution, became the first elected President of Venezuela. Vicente Guerrero, an illiterate Black Indian guerilla General during the Mexican Revolution, took his army into the Sierra Madre mountains where he trained them to wrest their country from Spain’s colonialism – and also taught himself to read and write. Mexico’s ruling white elite mocked his lack of education and called him a “triple-blooded outsider.” But in 1829 after Guerrero came down from his mountain refuge, he became President of Mexico, the first Black Indian head of state. Guerrero wrote Mexico’s constitution, emancipated its slaves, ended racial discrimination and abolished the death penalty.

His foes in Venezuela also consider Chavez a racial outsider, but the faces of millions of his supporters refute the charge, and his message continues to triumph at the polls. He seems to relish his role as Latin America’s chief antagonist to the Bush administration. Many believe his audacity instills courage and provides cover for Latin American leaders who have the audacity to challenge the giant to the north. [snip]

[H]ugo Chavez is waking folks up. His discounting, sharing and bartering of Venezuela’s most valuable natural resource, oil, is but one part of a larger vision of cooperation among peoples, that could serve as a model to resist, combat and replace the Global Rule-Of-Capital Order. Cuba, for example, has little oil, but doctors aplenty. Capitalism is incapable of fairly distributing medical services or of maintaining any other edifice of civilization that is not based on ever-escalating rates of profit for the rulers – a formula for vast suffering and eventual global collapse. In return for discounted oil, Venezuela imports more than 10,000 Cuban doctors to tend to the needs of the poor Venezuelan majority. That’s functional solidarity outside the dollar-dominated Order. The quality of life of both nations is enhanced through rational, voluntary exchange, rather than the coercive, race-to-the bottom international relationships of late-stage, armed-to-the-teeth global capitalism. [snip]

Remembering this… well, let’s just say it will be interesting to watch the Democrats. They are on the Front Burner now. And it is possible they underestimate the anger of the electorate. We shall see…

[“T]his is one country, whether we’re Democrat or Republicans,” said Rangel, in a bizarre outburst after Chavez called George Bush “the Devil” the at the United Nations, in September. “And to come here, at the invitation of our people, and insult the president of the United States, you insult the flag; you insult the president; you insult the country; and you insult my constituents.”

In other variations of his weird rant, Rangel spoke of “my president” being so cruelly maligned – a kind of twist on the old “Is we sick, boss?” Black servant line. (“Is we insulted, boss?”)

Later, Rangel “clarified” his remarks, reiterating his “extreme displeasure” with Chavez’s “personal and disparaging” characterization of Bush as Beelzebub. Chavez’s demeaning public attack against [Bush] is viewed by Republicans and Democrats, and all Americans, as an attack on all of us.” [snip]

I never bought into that “my president” business. I’d rather be wary – of them all.

[A]lthough Rangel’s rant is three-month-old news, it remains one of the baldest, most pitiful recent examples of contradiction in the behavior of a supposedly progressive African American politician. Rangel’s irate expression of solidarity with Bush – the most virulently anti-Black president since Woodrow Wilson segregated the federal bureaucracy in 1913 – clashes violently with the president’s own total lack of solidarity with African Americans. Nevertheless, Rangel maintains that an insult to Bush is “an attack on all of us.” ( Tonto’s rejoinder, “What you mean we, White Man?” comes to mind.)“

Rep. Rangel maintains that an insult to Bush is ‘an attack on all of us.’”

Nonplussed, Chavez traveled to Harlem’s Mount Olivet Baptist Church. “They told me that I should be careful after I called [Bush] the devil — and I think he is the devil — because he might kill me,” Chavez told theoverflow crowdin Rangel’s own district. Bush has been trying to dispose of Chavez at least since the U.S.-inspired April, 2002 coup attempt, yet murderous designs on the part of “his” president mean less to Rangel than perceived insults “to us all” from the crinkly-haired brown Latino bearing gifts, Hugo Chavez.

Rangel’s misplaced solidarity can be partially explained by comments from “his” House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, the purported progressive from San Francisco. Chavez, she said, “is an everyday thug” who “demeaned himself and he demeaned Venezuela.”

The ambitions proclaimed when the neo-cons’ mission statement “The Project for the New American Century” was declared in 1997 have turned into disappointment and recriminations as the crisis in Iraq has grown. “The Project for the New American Century” has been reduced to a voice-mail box and a ghostly website. A single employee has been left to wrap things up.“ (thanks Hicham)

posted by As’ad @ 9:54 PM

wellll… it would be better if more than just the website would become “ghostly”. I still see those “PNACers” around. Harlan Ullman for one, the planner of “Shock and Awe” bombing of Baghdad and elsewhere, was just in the audience at a panel in DC, broadcast on C-Span

Finito Benito, as I say to thwart the censors… :), finito Benito would be too good for the PNACers.

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UPDATE, 11:45 am Sunday

In reference to the comments from DT in the thread… I noticed this at Angry Arab:

Look at this story in the Washington Post. You always brace yourself when the Washington Post comes out with its monthly token story on one African-American. This story is like: a black man who does not want to be black. Look at the crux of this article:

“For his entire life, Mason had been determined to not be defined by race.”

How can you not be defined by race when everybody around you defines you by race? How can you not be defined by race in a deeply racist society?

Kevin Drum could not be more mistaken. I landed on his post thru IOZ’s post. Has he figured out NOTHING about the pro-war, the hard right conservatives? Does he understand nothing of “escalation” and what that means? I caught someone on one of the cables last night, in answer to a query about Iraq, say “it was hard to face losing after 30 years of movies with a happy ending”. I am not kidding.

People who believe Vietnam “could be won” BELIEVE the Rambo and Rocky movies (and for anyone who does not know, Stallone sat out Vietnam on Lac Leman, hanging with the Crown Prince of Ethiopia and screwing half of Europe, he was NOT in Vietnam). And remember, there is a new Rocky movie out…

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Thought I’d let anyone know who was interested that my blog is at a new url – the original became a casualty to Blogger’s current “migration” to its new set-up. The Left End of the Dial v2.0 is basically the same blog, with the same cast of characters.

Oooo…. here is a Chrismas present for you Marisa… the white boyz are talking about those Black people again. Waiting for Jiacinto’s pearls of cultural wisdom.

If you did not see the orange you would swear if was LGF… the racist shit.

Howver, the article that is linked What Obama isn’t: black like me. Is actually very good and explains how people like Oliver Willis (openly expressing that he would not lift his baby finger to help Black folk… which earned him the admiration of the “progressives” ) … have become a Log Cabin Negro. This is the same behavior that LCR are ridiculed for but somehow “progressives” find admirmal in docile neutered Black people.

The white boyz have gone so far and created color codes for uppity Negros “they are embarrassing” this code for not staying in their place. Notice they only use it for Blacks; McKinney, Jefferson.

The blather going on at DK is interesting…. and it shows that the Black vote is not a easily lead as some hoped… this showed in NYC with Blacks turning their backs on the racist Latino candidate for mayor and Bloomberg won, Carter v Jefferson, Ford… and I am willing to bet the the Dems forgo the Fla 13 election investigations otherwise they would have to also investigate the bullshit that went on in McKinney’s race in Ga.

Remember this is the same Obama that stumped for Lieberman…

People are not blind… everyone saw Bill Clinton run to rescue the victim in NOLA… Bush. And the little dog and pony show of the Clintons with Obama didn’t help matters…. that is when I was put off totally by Obama (the Clintons adopted African child). I have even spoken to some Africans and they are not impressed in fact the opposite that it is shameful for Obama to be leapedfrogged over African Americans… they would not accept such a thing in their own countries they won’t even accept they own people “returning”… they see it as a slap in the face to those who stayed and suffered… then to have (in their minds) someone living safely on the outside only to return once they did all the dirty work…like dying …to make others free…so that they can reap the benefits and ignore those that brung them to the party in the first place. The indignation on that thread that Black dare to demand their own… is what is most appalling.

But this is a wider phenomenon happening in the country the same can be seen in universities where the African diaspora students and mixed race black are now being accepted “IN PLACE OF” home grown Black Americans.

So, let the white boyz talk amongst themselves… anyone who could have added intelligence and substance to that debate has been banned or gave up trying long ago. They have a solid agenda and do not want facts getting in there way.

On a side note I have noticed is that the majority of the “selected” (not banned) voices of Black America in Blahggshitopia are gay and lesbian Terrance, Pam, Bruh… they seem to have earned their “place” by writing the obligatory articles on how Blacks are inherently homophobes.

However, I have yet to see the gay “voices” write about the inherent racisms in their circle. It is obvious that it exist and the claim that they are “exempt” from bigotry and racism because they are gay. Examples: Aravosis the biggest racist gay in the blogsophere… I guess he is trying to live up to Sullivan the biggest racist openly gay in media. Then looking at DK, DHinMI was happy to pluck JamesB23 another racist gay to write for the Last Dipshit. Musing 85 is offended in this thread that black people actually speak and think for themselves, the only way he can comprehend this phenomenon is to call Black people racist. Then there are those two racist mysognistic gays on FDL.

My question is why do they not have to write the obligatory “Yes, Gays are racist too” post that seem to be mandatory for all LBG Black bloggers.

But this is a wider phenomenon happening in the country the same can be seen in universities where the African diaspora students and mixed race black are now being accepted “IN PLACE OF” home grown Black Americans. – DT

and meant to avoid a deeper discussion of what really concerns African Americans- which is not whether he is black enough, but will he ditch AA concerns.

by bruh1 on Sat Dec 23, 2006 at 08:11:18 PM PST

Through out the thread MB pour oil (no pun inteneded) on the irrelevant question while ignoring the basis of the consternment. This was the same issue of the Whites only lunch with Clinton… to which O. Willis happily announced that “Hell yeah, for a seat at the table he would have not said a word regarding race or Black issues… but leave that up to the generousity of his white colleagues to do so… if they wished so…. APPLAUSE IN THE BLAGHSHITOSPHERE!!!

Ethiopia sent its warplanes to bomb Somalia today, openly escalating its conflict with Islamist fighters into a dreaded regional war.

According to witnesses, the warplanes bombarded several towns while Ethiopian tanks pushed aggressively into territory that had been controlled by Somalia’s Islamist forces. Ethiopia is backing Somalia’s transitional government, which has been losing control of parts of the country to the rival Islamist forces.

Until today, Ethiopian officials denied they had combat forces in Somalia, saying instead that their presence was limited to a few hundred military advisors. But witnesses had said Ethiopian troops were already in Somalia.

“Our defense force has been forced to enter a war,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on television today, according to news reports. He said his country was defending itself against “attacks from extremists and anti-Ethiopian forces” and would “protect the sovereignty of the land.”

The Ethiopian offensive ignited fighting up and down the Somali coast.

“The Ethiopians are blowing things up all over the place,” said Mohammed Hussein Galgal, an Islamist commander in Beledweyne, near the Ethiopian border. “Civilians have been killed, people are fleeing. But don’t worry, we won’t be defeated.”

Ethiopian officials said today that they had run out of patience with the Islamist leaders, who have declared war on Ethiopia and vowed to turn Somalia into a recruiting ground for anti-Ethiopian fighters.

There’s a “legitimate” Somalian government that at this point controls just about nothing inside the country is nominally governs. As always, this is the faction we’re backing.

Feliz almost baby-born-in-a-barn birth-day (pure fiction? sure, but certainly sells the widgets), a final cheerful thought before I make final preparations for my sleigh ride to Gotham (look out, NYC, the hick hipster is on the way); I really hope the little fucker can wait ’til after new year’s to start the bombig (and I’ve left the concrete canyons and am back home in los canyones de la frontera)NYT

U.S. Is Detaining Iranians Caught in Raids in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ and SABRINA TAVERNISE
BAGHDAD, Dec. 24 — The American military is holding at least four Iranians in Iraq, including men the Bush administration called senior military officials, who were seized in a pair of raids late last week aimed at people suspected of conducting attacks on Iraqi security forces, according to senior Iraqi and American officials in Baghdad and Washington.

snipIt was unclear what kind of evidence American officials possessed that the Iranians were planning attacks, and the officials would not identify those being held. One official said that “a lot of material” was seized in the raid, but would not say if it included arms or documents that pointed to planning for attacks. Much of the material was still being examined, the official said.

Nonetheless, the two raids, in central Baghdad, have deeply upset Iraqi government officials, who have been making strenuous efforts to engage Iran on matters of security. At least two of the Iranians were in this country on an invitation extended by Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, during a visit to Tehran earlier this month. It was particularly awkward for the Iraqis that one of the raids took place in the Baghdad compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite leaders, who traveled to Washington three weeks ago to meet President Bush.

Well, here’s to hoping that these raids are more a shot across the Iraqi shi’ite Ministers bow, “Why would would you want to leave or protection” Don Corleone type moment, rather than part of the pretext for the public debut of large scale Iranian Air Raids…

Well, screw that. There’s nothing we can do to stop them anyway, so give ’em the resources they want. Let ’em fight the war the way they want. If it works — and after all, stranger things have happened — then I’ll eat some crow.

screw you kevin. lost american and iraqi lives are a hell of a lot more than resources. they’re lives, once lost never regained.

you suffer from the disease that affects all the dipshit male so-called liberal bloggers that i run across. you think war is some kinda chess game far removed from blood and pieces of bone and human tissue blown all over. you horrible horrible little bigmouth man.

americans, whos only crime in life is to be born in more modest circumstances, WASTE their young lives trying to get a leg up in life by serving their country in an evil war and you talk about them in the most inhumane manner as if their lives are only a means to your political ends.

do us all a favor mr bathrobe blogger jerk. go fuck off. you make me physically ill.

Hey hey Tuston… thanks for the link. And have a good trip. Hopefully the bad flying weather calms down. Horrifying being trapped in Denver airport for days. Not even a way out via land vehicle, it seemed…

Hey Bayprairie. UNBELIEVABLE, wasn’t it? Such horrifying GAUL and ignorance, willful disregard for human life… on the part of Kevin.

Re Kevin Drum’s “Let ‘em fight the war the way they want. If it works — and after all, stranger things have happened”

That assertion was unbelievably stupid. Aside from the issues you mention, can anybody seriously believe that they will stop that the warmongers will stop at the surge? I’m sure once the “surge subsides” they will argue something like this: “In those areas where the surged troops were located, we were succesful at defeating the insurgency. This shows victory is within our reach if we commit more resources (somebody else’s kids and your money) and everyone agrees that we must win”.

A major buildup would commit the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to decisive combat in which there would be no more strategic reserves to be sent to the front. As Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway pointed out Monday, “If you commit your reserve for something other than a decisive win, or to stave off defeat, then you have essentially shot your bolt.”

It will be a matter of win or die in the attempt. In that situation, everyone in uniform on the ground will commit every ounce of their being to “victory,” and few measures will be shrunk from.

It will be total war with the likelihood of all the excesses and mass casualties that come with total war. To force such a strategy on our armed forces would be nothing short of immoral, in view of predictable troop losses and the huge number of Iraqis who would meet violent injury and death. If adopted, the “surge” strategy will turn out to be something we will spend a generation living down.

And here is a swift kick in the ass for Bowers and, really, can Reid get WORSE? It is APPALLING he is Maj Leader:

Incoming Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said last Sunday that he could “go along” with the widely predicted surge in U.S. troops in Iraq, but for only two or three months.

Is it conceivable that Reid doesn’t know that this is about the next two years – not months?

Egged on by “full-speed-ahead” Cheney, Bush is determined that the war not be lost while he is president. And he is commander-in-chief. Events, however, are fast overtaking White House preferences and are moving toward denouement well before two more years are up.

So.

At Thursday's debate, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren defended their Medicare for All plan. They faced criticism from several rivals, including Senator Amy Klobuchar, who described it as a "bad idea," and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who claimed the bill shows Sanders and Warren do not "trust the American people."

At the third presidential primary debate in Houston, Texas, senator and 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Warren also spoke about her stance on U.S. trade policy and how "our trade policy in America has been broken for decades."

After being questioned about the crisis in Venezuela, Senator Bernie Sanders defended his vision of democratic socialism. "I agree with what goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia: guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical le […]

Debate moderator Jorge Ramos of Univision grilled former Vice President Joe Biden over the Obama administration's deportation record. Biden refused to answer whether he did anything to prevent Obama from deporting a record 3 million people.

A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Friday demanded internal emails, detailed financial information and other company records from top executives of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc, Apple Inc, and Alphabet Inc's Google, widening the antitrust probe of Big Tech.

U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Friday asked a government watchdog to look into the Trump administration's decision to launch an antitrust probe into four automakers cooperating with California on tighter greenhouse gas emissions limits that Trump is trying to eliminate.

A lawyer for former FBI official Andrew McCabe pressed U.S. prosecutors on Friday to drop their politically sensitive case against him, citing reports that suggest they may be having trouble securing criminal charges.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.